The morning started with a visit to the kennel to meet and pick up our teams! You can’t even believe the noise level in the kennel! Howling, howling, and howling. They all seem to be saying... "let's go, let's go, let's go! "
So, I’m sure the first question you have is, “Who are your dogs?” We have a team of five dogs. Two lead dogs, Darla and Fennel, one swing dog named Domino, and then two wheel dogs Jupiter and Belle. They like to harness boy dogs next to girl dogs so they don’t fight so much, so we have three boys and two girls. After we got going for a while it seemed like Jupiter had a hurt leg. The guides took him off the chain and let him run free for a while and he seemed okay. It turns out he has an injury to his sciatica that flairs up now and again. We replaced him with Calvin (who has brother named Hobbes by the way).
It is amazing how different each dog’s personality is! Fennel is the oldest dog at twelve years. He is solid and dependable, does his job well, and loves to be petted. If you are petting him and stop, he paws at your boot until you start petting him again. He also has some lab mix in him, so he’s not as wolf like as the other dogs. Because of the lab blood in him, he barks instead of howls like the other dogs. He’s a special dog – and even has his own blog on the Wilderness Classroom Webpage which we’ll talk about more when we get home.
Darla is a cute dog. She keeps looking back to make sure we are still there! She also looks back if we are going up a hill and we aren’t helping to push the sled. She’s pretty quiet.
Darla and Fennel - Fennel is the big brown dog:
Domino is our crazy dog! He’s so wild! He is in the middle of the team by himself, so as we’re running down the trail he likes to duck under the rope and change sides. When we get going really fast, he pulls out the side and almost runs up to the lead dogs! He wants to go, go, go all the time. He is also a chewer. When we stopped for lunch at the lodge today, we left the dogs down on the trail all chained up to the line. But, Domino decided that wasn’t okay with him, and the next thing we knew, he was outside the lodge!
Belle is a little bit of a stand-offish dog. She doesn’t get too excited about being petted or too excited about anything! She seems kind of quiet and shy. She pulls really well when there is a dog next to her, but when she is alone she kind of takes it easy for a while!
Calving is absolutely beautiful! He looks like a wolf. He’s a bigger dog and is just so sweet. He loves to stick his head between your legs if you are standing next to him!
I’m guessing your next question is going to be, “Just how cold is it?” I will tell you that the wind is nasty cold. According to the weather, it was a high of 5 degrees and a low of minus 17 degrees today. It also snowed all day. But honestly, I never got freezing cold except on my cheeks when the wind blew. We are running on two types of trails, lake trails and wood trails. The lake trails are literally going across frozen lakes – which is cold because there are no wind breakers. The wood trails are a bit warmer but are much harder to navigate.
The only thing that was really a problem with the cold is that I kept getting ice on my glasses. I eventually just took them off! But, that means that my pictures didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped… so I will try again tomorrow!
Today we also saw a bald eagle and three deer! The eagle was just amazing. He flew big circles across the lake while we were running across it.
I think that’s all for tonight. I’m in my room in the cabin and I can occasionally hear the dogs howling away! I’ll write more next time about just how much hard work is really involved in mushing! I don’t have internet access in the cabin, so I’m not sure just how often I’ll be able to update, but I’ll do my best!
The whole team....
Mrs. Reiter
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